Illustrations of geometric tracery, from the paneling belonging to Carlisle Cathedral

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ILLUSTRATIONS

OF

GEOMETRIC TRACERY,

FROM THE PANELING BELONGING TO

Carlisle C£atfj*&vaL

BY

ROBERT WILLIAM BILLINGS,

AUTHOR OF THE ILLUSTRATIONS AND HISTORY OF CARLISLE CATHEDRAL.

Hottifon:

PUBLISHED BY THOMAS AND WILLIAM BOONE, 29, NEW HON D STREET J
ANP THE AUTHOR, MANOR HOUSE, KENTISH TOWN.

1842.

The second view of the Screen is from the Author's Illustrations of
Carlisle Cathedral. It has been thought advisable to reprint it here for the
better explanation of the subject to those who are not in possession of that
work.

R. W. B.

ILLUSTRATIONS,

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The Geometric Panels forming the present Illustrations are the remains
of an exceedingly valuable and extensive collection, for the whole Choir of
Carlisle Cathedral, eastward of the still beautiful stalls, was separated from the
aisles by Screens filled with elaborate Tracery. The same enrichment extended
also to the Chapel of St. Catherine, a small building, which may be termed
an aisle to the south transept.

In the year 176^, the Cathedral was, according to the Churchwardens'
usual phrase, repaired and " beautified." The whole of the Choir screens were
removed, and their place occupied by a high stone wall, covered in the Choir
by a wooden arcade in the true Gothic style of that period, and in the aisles
by a carefully-executed coat of plaister. The old and useless paneling was
removed to some of the outbuildings, and by far the greater portion either lost
or destroyed.

All that remains of the original enrichments may be described as the
frame-work of an exceedingly mutilated screen, in the possession of William
Cowper, Esq. at Carlton Hall, near Penrith, from which is derived the
materials for Plates XIX. and XX., and three of the borders in Plate XVIII. ;
three beautiful Panels (Plates XV. XVI. XVII.) forming part of a sideboard
at Featherstone Castle, Northumberland, the seat of Lord Wallis (formerly
proprietor of Carlton Hall) ; one Panel (Plate VIII.), and the fourth
border of Plate XVIII. inserted in the modern doorway to the aisle of the
Choir against the Bishop's Throne.

4

ILLUSTRATIONS OF GEOMETRIC TRACERY,

Fortunately, the Chapel of St. Catherine was not considered worth
beautifying, and in this building we have two screens, containing the remainder
of the subjects represented, numbering thirteen out of twenty. Three or
four Panels at present in the Chapel belonged to the Choir. The originals,
most probably, from being more beautiful, were cut away ; the ends of the
original tracery being still left, give very much the appearance of their
having been taken to fit a particular piece of furniture.

The whole of these screens are reputed to be the work of Prior Thomas
Gondibour, who presided over the Cathedral from 1484 to 1507. His
initials (C* 0*) were beautifully cut in the Tracery of a Panel in the doorway
shewn in the frontispiece, but this was unfortunately pulled out and taken
away by some mischievous person in the winter of 1839. Another cypher
(T. G.) forming the cusps of a trefoil from Carlisle (see Plate XX.) may be
taken for Prior Gondibour's. It is among the remains at Carlton Hall.
Their date may therefore fairly be taken at about 1500.

Some of these specimens are perhaps not so interesting in themselves
for elegance of design, as from the circumstance of their proving that the
majority were designed on the same ground-work, namely, the division of
a square into four parts each way, or sixteen squares. Upon the lines of
these squares the centres of all the curves are worked, and upon such a simple
calculation of parts, as to render their construction perfectly easy. It is of
essential importance to have a ready means, well known, of re-producing the
beautiful forms displayed in many of these and other specimens, and the
author trusts that the means he has adopted will effect this, for no workman,
following the descriptions given of each Plate, can possibly err in any of the
leading features.

From the direct evidence here produced of system in the minor detail of a
once beautiful church, is it not fair to assume that the mis-called Gothic
Architects had a system for objects of greater magnitude, that is the buildings
themselves ?

In the leading curves of these examples, nothing can exceed their
accuracy of projection, but all the foils contained within are (most probably
from their diminutive size) worked by hand. In fact, they are too small to
be otherwise, unless the most extraordinary fastidiousness had been exercised

FROM THE PANELING OF CARLISLE CATHEDRAL. 5

upon them. They are all drawn half the real size, except Plates IX. and X.
which are the full dimensions.

The two screens, as shewn in the frontispiece, and in the Plate from
the author's work on Carlisle Cathedral, may be briefly described as consisting
of a basement of draped Panels, and immediately above them a series of per-
forated Geometric Panels. Above these is a plain string, surmounted in the
former Plate by a series of smaller Panels, and in the latter by the running-
border shewn in Plate XI. The upper portion of the screen is a series of
detached piers, all ornamented in one screen by flying buttresses, and in the
other a buttress on each alternate pier. Above the buttresses is a square-
headed capital, and the space between this and the upper string (ornamented
alternately over each pier with a head and leaves) is filled with tracery, the
cusps of the lower arch being ornamented with leaves.

The string is surmounted by a richly decorated parapet, with a border of
leaves connected at the top by a bead. In the centre of each parapet is a
shield, the armorial bearings of which have disappeared. The whole of the
frame-work of the mutilated screen at Carlton Hall was ornamented with the
bordering, shewn in Plate XVIII. fig. b.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PLATES.

Plate II. The specimen at the side of this Plate is the simplest as regards
the division of the Panel into sixteen squares, consisting in fact of sixteen equal
quatrefoils. The construction of Plate II. is equally simple, being composed
of the arc of a circle, whose boundary touches the points b, c, d, the centre a.
being determined by the intersection of lines perpendicular to the chords b. c.
and b. d. The trefoil is composed of equal circles within the triangle e.

Plates III. IV. V. The centres of the principal figure in these exam-
ples will be found at the angles and centre of the parallelogram, containing
two equilateral triangles, as marked on the margin of Plate III. (a)

Plate III. Draw the circle a. and arcs a. a, and within it the two circles b.
The triangular spaces left within the figure are filled with the circles c.
The upper and lower extremities have semi-quatrefoils. The circle filling
the space which should correspond with c. is larger on account of the Panel
being made square instead of the parallelogram of a hexagon, whereby the
additional space shewn in the small diagram (b) is added to the figure.

Plate IV. This is varied by changing the two inner circles, b c. from
the width to the length of the figure. The radius of the small circle d. is
one third of the largest, as figured. This example is rather less in height
than width : the inequality mentioned in the last is consequently less apparent.

Plate V. The difference of this example, from the preceding, is in the
small circle (e.) being brought to the centre of the principal figure, instead
of the extremity, and in the introduction of another circle (d.) into the
triangular space, between the circles, a. b. c.

Plate VI. This is also a variation of the preceding example, but the
divisions of the height and width, approach nearer to a square, the parallelo-
gram of the Panel being nearly in the proportion of Produce the semicircle
a. of one half the width of the Panel, and the segments b. from the centre a,
intersecting the points, b. c.

Plate VII. The arrangement of this beautiful example, differs totally
from the preceding, and the division of height and width are perfectly equal.
Divide the square into four parts, and from figure 3 of these produce the
circle a. The distance between the boundary of this circle and the intersec-

DESCRIPTION OF THE PLATES.

7

tion of the square, at b, gives the radius of the small circle c. These circles
being produced at the intersection of the alternate squares, the outer con-
necting arc (c?.) is struck from the point g, touching the small circles at e. e.
and the intersection of the square at f.

Plate VIII. This is perfectly square, and divided in the same manner as
the preceding examples. The diagonals of each square being drawn, produce
the circle a, within four of the diagonal squares. The small circle b, of two-
thirds the diameter of the preceding, completes the outline.

Plate IX. The sub-division into small squares is here dispensed with, but
the whole subject is a repetition of each figure four times. Draw the diagonals
of the square, and from the angle of the Panel draw the quadrant a, and within
it the circle b, touching a, b, c. Divide the radius of a into three parts ;
the diagonal of the first gives the radius of the smaller circle c. Within the
quadrants the space is filled by four equal circles d.

Plates X. and XI. are small examples, above the larger Panels in the
view of the Screen. These have been terminated by an enrichment of leaves,
a portion of which is still left.

Plate X. Draw the diagonals a. a, and within them the semicircle b. from
the centre a, on the smaller side of the parallelogram. The semicircles c are
from b b, on the longer side. The semicircle d. is a repetition of this.

Plate XI. Draw the semicircles a. a ; and from a. produce that marked
b. The radius of c. is one-sixth the length of the Panel, and that of d. one-
third the width, e. is from the figure b, touching the line d. at c.

The border in this Plate belongs to the Screen in the aisle of the Choii.
The leading lines are only repetitions of the tracery described on Plate V.

Plate XII. Archway of the Screen — Draw the semicircle a. from a, and
divide its radius into 11 parts. From figure 6, produce the quadrant J, and
from b. the semicircle k. Draw a line from the centre a. through the angle b.
The point d, equal in distance from it as b, c, is the centre of the curve e.
f. is a repetition of this upon the line g. The smaller curve h, is portion of a
semicircle touching f and c, its centre being on the boundary line of the Panel.
The upper portion of the curve is a repetition of this from the point c. e is a quad-
rant from the centre a, and the lower part or continuation f, is from the centre
(d), upon a line drawn from a, thi'ough the 12th part of the scale before named.

Plate XIII. is a large Panel upside down in the view of the Screen.
This specimen did not originally belong to it, and has been placed there to

8

DESCRIPTION OF THE PLATES.

fill up a gap, occasioned by the destruction of the original work. It is repre-
sented at a, the remainder of the Plate being a portion half the full size.

Plate XIV. The Parapet. The great semicircle forming the leading
line of the figure is the same as described in the border of Plate XL, and the
remainder of the tracery is very nearly the same as in Plate V. The outline
of the border-leaf is the diagonal of a square.

Plate XV. is a repetition of the same circle, whose centre is the inter-
section of each division or square. — Produce the circle a. from the centre a,
and corresponding circles from b and c; their intersection cuts off 1-Gth
from each side of a, marked b and c, and represented by the dotted line.

Plate XVI. Divide the panel into four portions, and draw the diagonals
a. a. Within each triangle strike the circle b, and in the angles of the square
the small circles c. c. The arc d is a portion of the first circle.

Plate XVII. Draw the diagonals of the square, as a. a. Within the
triangle draw the circle b, and within this the four smaller circles c, the
parts represented by the dotted lines being left out in the complete figure.
Draw the circle in the angles of the square (d.) The limit of the circle e. is
determined by a perpendicular, a. dropped from the centre of the circle b.

Plate XVIII. — Borders. Figure a. is in the doorway of the Choir
against the Bishop's Throne. This elegant little specimen is the repetition
of semicircles whose radius is one half, and one quarter the width of the
border ; the ground-work being precisely the same as the majority of the
Panels — namely, four squares each way.

Fig. b. is peculiar for the leafy border on each side.
Fig. c. is the same as the subject of Plate XV. And
Fig. d. very strongly resembles the Tracery of Plate V.

Plates XIX. and XX. All that remains of these Panels is the frame-
work and ends of the tracery. — No. XIX. has sufficient to identify the design,
but No. XX. is not to be depended on for originality. They are both peculiar
from the sub-division of the Panel into four distinct parts, by the diagonal
rib of Plate XIX., and the cross-rib with the angles rounded off in Plate XX.

THE END.

O. NORMAN, PRINTER, MAIDEN LANE, COVENT GARDEN.

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